Bumpy Lace

I'm not sure where the three weeks since I last posted have gone. I managed to get three summer dresses finished before the sun disappeared. The first one is a house dress only, a test run I suppose. I love the second and third ones. I haven't gotten round to taking photo's yet, and I was too hot when I actually wore them out to want to have my photo taken. 

So instead, I have a photo of a shawl that I've been working on. This is how it looks pre-blocking:

As you can see, it's very bumpy and lumpy. I've blocked it hard, which has made it flat and smooth :) To make sure I take photo's of my summer dresses soon, I'm going to wear one to take photo's of the blocked shawl.

Anyway, I just thought I'd pop in and say hi :) Oh, and we have a white chocolate and raspberry loaf in the oven so hopefully I'll have some photo's of that to share too. It's just starting to brown and smells amazing!!

Ashley x

Stollen and the last one

It was delicious! I even got Dom's approval with 'You can make this again'! The icing was a lovely touch,  the recipe had you make it with lemon juice instead of water. I'd have never thought to do this, but I'll definitely be doing it again. It would also be lovely on cupcakes too. It disappeared pretty quick too!

As for the last one? The last Christmas present of course!

This is for my sister India, it's the same as Ebony's but in India's favourite colour :) Yep, she's a tomboy. Ebony has always wanted to be like me, whereas India has always wanted to be like her brothers. Ebony has also showed more of an interest in sewing. Mum bought them some little sewing kits, you know the kind, bits of felt with the holes already punched through? Well, I expected India to catch on more quickly as she's older. Nope! Ebony caught on quicker and got tangled less than India! India quickly lost interest so I finished it for her. I love the differences in their personalities, so cute :)

We also made gingerbread yesterday :) We don't have a gingerbread man cutter though, so we just did little round biscuits. Yum! It was another of Delia's recipes and worked perfectly.

Oh, and I'm going home tomorrow!! Woohoo!! I haven't been home since September so I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone :)

Ashley x

Christmas Baking

That right there is Stollen. I'm using a Delia Smith recipe from her 'Baking' collection. You can find it online here. That dough took very little effort on my part and came together so easily! It didn't stick to me or the kitchen counter and smells amazing. And my hands smell like lemon zest from kneading it :)

I've got about 2 hours before it finishes rising, so I suppose I should go and wash all the dirty dishes I always manage to amass when I bake ;)

Baked Stollen photos to follow! :)

Are you doing any Christmas baking? Or any other holiday baking for that matter?

Ashley x

Birthday Cake

It's my birthday! I've left the teens behind me at last! I baked my birthday cake using a sponge cake recipe from Delia Smith and used Morrisons frosting because I can never get frosting to go right! And I've wanted some of those chocolate pieces since I first saw them, again Morrisons own brand. Nom! I'll let you know how it turned out when we've tried a piece (I'm all pigged out on cherry bakewells and double chocolate cookies!).
Dom surprised me with two knitting books, Toe up socks for every body by Wendy Johnson and Brave new knits by Julie Turjoma. He'd checked out my Amazon wishlist and picked the things he thought Id want most right now :) Which right now is knitting related books (my sewing mojo is still MIA). So we went to Spins and Needles and I picked out some yarn and needles. I've started the Rosebud socks from Toe up socks for every body :) I'm knitting them using two circular needles which I've never done before. The patterns also use charts, which I've also never used before. The book gives a really good explanation of how to follow a chart and I can actually do it! The yarn I picked is Ranco solid by Araucania, and the needles are Knit Pro. So 4 ply yarn with 2mm needles. . . .These might take a while! lol Here's a couple of photos with my progress so far.

Can you see the first rosebud in the middle? I'm really enjoying doing the lacework, it's something I've never done before and its nice to have a challenging knitting project on the go. I feel like I've come on in leaps and bounds with my knitting in the last couple of months and I'm really proud of myself. I still don't feel like I could knit a cardigan, but I've looked through a couple of the patterns in Brave new knits and understand most of it! :D
Not forgetting of course my big present from Dom that he let me have super early:

I'm going 'home home' on Monday for the evening and can't wait to see everybody. My aunty is also coming over and I haven't seen her in ages :) And mum is cooking one of my favourite meals and getting in some of my favourite party food, so it should be lovely.
Have a lovely weekend!
Ashley x

Peanut butter biscuits

This another recipe from my Delia Smith baking cookbook, which unfortunately I can't find online so I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to share the recipe :S What do you think?
They are delicious, definitely the nicest peanut butter biscuits I've ever made :) I'll be making more soon, I'm sure!
Ashley x
ps. Don't forget to enter my giveaway, you've got till Friday! :)

Old fashioned cherry cake

Here is what is left of a cake I made last night. Yep, it's nearly gone! I used this recipe, though I followed the recipe from one of Delia's recipe books that Dom's mum very kindly got me for xmas :) Its just safer than having my Eee PC anywhere near where I'm baking! lol It turned out delicious, though a little over done. Next time I'll remember to reduce the cooking time for our cooker. Oh yes, there will definitely be a next time! Dom was very impressed and insists that there will be a next time!
Also a warm welcome to my new followers! :) I should have giveaways more often, as I've gained more followers in the last 4 days than I did in the first 4 months of blogging!
Thankfully the antibiotics are working wonderfully and I'm feeling much better. So much better in fact, that Dom and I have started doing yoga everyday! I'm also following the XBX programme, which was developed for women by the Royal Canadian Air Force. Dom is following the 5BX programme which is the men's version. We're both enjoying it a lot, and although we're only on the fourth day of it we're noticing we can preform some of the yoga stretches better! Lets hope I start noticing an improvement in my fitness soon!
Ashley x
ps. don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't already! :)

Russian dolls!

These babies aren't just Russian dolls. Oh no. They're also cup measuring thingies. Dom bought them for me because he is always sending me emails with links to recipes in them that he thinks look yummy. But he never checks the ingredients so usually the ingredients have to be measured in cups! So I moaned at him about it. And he bought me these cute little things! I tried them out using this recipe and wow! It was perfect, there was the perfect amount of everything! And the end result!!! There are no words for how delicious they were. I didn't get a picture as we ate them too quick but they turned out exactly like the picture on the recipe page!! I certainly recommend trying the recipe if you have some cups.
Also, on a more serious note, please send lots of love and cuddles to my little brothers kitten/cat (when are they old enough to be called cat?) because the poor thing is at the vets! Apparently he had to have a blockage removed and they're keeping him in for a couple of days to make sure he doesn't have any kidney damage :( The poor thing! And just because I had to share these funny photos my mum took of him, here he is:

Doesn't he look like he's laughing?

Rooaaarrr!!

Ashley x

Homemade calzone

Now, I'd like to say that this photo doesn't show how delicious this is. So don't judge by the photo! Let your taste buds do the judging!

Ok, so for the dough:

Ingredients

250ml of warm water

half a tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon fast action dried yeast

Approximately 400g plain flour

1) put warm water and yeast in a large bowl. Add sugar and let it sit for 5-10 minutes, until the yeast activates and foams. Add the salt and oil.

2)Gradually add in flour as stirring the mixture. (The original recipe said 240g of flour, but I found this to be way to little. Hence why I said approximately 400g. I keep adding flour until I feel like I want to touch it, until its not possible to stir it anymore).

3)Knead the dough for about 10 minutes. Keep sieving flour over it whenever it feels sticky. It should be super soft when you knead it, very elastic, and shouldn't rip when you stretch it.

4) Put it into a floured bowl, and let it rise for about an hour at room temperature, or 5 hours in the fridge.

5) place on a floured surface and knead it gently to knock the air out of it.

6) half the dough. Its plenty for two pizzas, or in this case two calzones :)

Now for the filling. I did this while the dough was rising.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons of olive oil (and oil for frying)

2 small red onions, chopped

1 aubergine,cubed

2-3 garlic cloves, chopped

50g (drained weight) sun-dried tomatoes in oil, chopped

1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme

125g mozzarella cheese, cubed

splash of red wine if you have it

salt and pepper to season

1) heat some oil in a pan. Add the red onions and fry until soft.

2) add the aubergine, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, thyme, and seasoning.

3) cook for 4-5 minutes, until the aubergine is beginning to soften, stirring frequently.

4) I felt it was a bit dry, it needed a bit more moisture. I added a generous splash of red wine, and put it back on the heat until there wasn't any liquid at the bottom of the pan.

Ok, now back to the  pizza dough!

1) Once its halved, roll each half out to about 9-10 inches.

2)Divide the filling mixture between the two, spreading over one half of each pizza base. Add the mozzarella on top of the filling.

3)Dampen the edges of the pizza bases with water, and fold over the dough to cover the filling. Press around the edges to seal it. Like a pastie :)

4)Place the calzones onto a greased baking sheet.

5)Brush the calzones with half a tablespoon of olive oil each. Make a small hole in each calzone to let steam out.

6)Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden in an oven preheated to 220'C.

7)Remove from the oven, and brush with olive oil again. Serve!

Delicious! Though we each had to leave half as we were so full! Oh well, left overs for tea tomorrow night! :D Calzone is such a great idea as there are so many things you could try as a filling!

If you try it, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did :)

Jellybean x

Short bread biscuits

I made shortbread biscuits last night, and they were so good we've already eaten them all!

Ingredients
125g/4oz butter
55g/2oz caster sugar
180g/6oz plain flour

1) Beat the sugar and butter together until pale.
2) Stir in the flour to get a smooth paste (I had to add a little water to get it to stick together well)
3)Turn onto a floured surface and gently roll out until 1cm thick.
4) Cut into rounds using a biscuit cutter. Put on the baking tray and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
5) Bake for 15-20 minutes (I found that 10 minutes was ok) in an oven preheated to 190'C/375'F/Gas mark 5 until golden brown. Leave to cool.

We ended up with about 24 biscuits. The dough was really nice to work with :) and the biscuits had a lovely crumbly texture. Here's how they turned out:

 Jellybean x